I never knew that Mark Twain was a satirist. And a pretty good one at that. I recently ran into this great article of his (helping Erin with her homework) called The Damned Human Race which although now outdated (the part about Frenchmen still makes me chuckle), still makes some very good points about man in general. And is quite amusing to boot. Although kinda sad to see that mankind in general hasn't changed very much from that time. Should definitely check it out. =)

And for those of you with time to spare and want to understand a little bit more about the whole Israel/Palestine issue, check out this Harper's article. Forwarded to me by Andy and is a pretty good read.

Anyway, both articles above basically reaffirm my belief that organized religion is quite possibly the worst thing ever inflicted on mankind. It's an outdated psychological and social construct that's in serious need of change. No offense to my religious friends out there, I'm sure you all have the best intentions at heart. =)

Well, the biggest news recently (for me at least) is that Scott, an ol' high school buddy, is _finally_ leaving NJ for the grand metropolis that is..... Sacramento???? The hell? Ah well, I guess he never really struck me as the big city type anyway. =) Going there as a newly-minted contract programmer for Verizon. It's a sad event for me mainly because well, he was the only guy left from our high school days that was still back in the Florham Park/East Hanover area. So now that he's leaving, there's no one for me to hang out with anymore when I go back there. Now he's just another person I have to visit when I do my Cali road tour. ;-p It just feels weird. He was always a constant in a fluid world. I guess it's good for him that he's finally going to be somewhere else (at least for a coupla months ;-). I thought he'd _never_ leave. =)

But we had a small going-away party for him at one of our old haunts (well, _my_ old haunt to be more exact; he still went there weekly), New World Manga. Place where we spent way too much time and money on the infamous Magic the Gathering and other assorted card games. 'twas a nice, relaxed evening. Rather nostalgic for me.

Anyways, if you're reading this Scott, best of luck out there and don't get fooled by those devious Californians with their year-round suntans, plastic looks, and devil-may-care attitudes. Oh wait, you'll be in North Cali. Never mind then. =)

The other major event (this time in my professional life) that happened in the past month is that I survived my company's second round of layoffs. Well ok, not exactly something to be proud about but still, this round was a _lot_ more stressful since things were starting to hit rather close to home. Our tech services group in Weehawken alone lost 4 out of 13. Other departments lost much more. Our Weehawken office takes up parts of 3 floors. We've lost so many people in the last 6 months that now each of those 3 offices are at half-capacity if even that. This last round would've been even more depressing if we weren't at least doing work. Things have picked up a little bit for us although it's mostly work we're getting from other places like Philly and Chicago. Enough to keep those of us remaining busy and utilized. And I got to move out of my 3-man office to a 2-man one. Got more space, same view, a cork board, a file cabinet, and my back isn't facing the door anymore. Although it does make my C.H.I.M.P. obsolete.

But even in this crap-ass economy, rich people are still rich. Evidenced by the fact that the new condo complex they're building down the street from us is already at 80% capacity. This is the complex where 1 bedroom's go for over $300k. Yowza.

Moving back to the personal front, I've just realized that one of the perks (actually I'm still debating this) of being in a relationship is that I've spent more money on clothes in the past 2 years than at any other time in my life. And the sad part is, most of it I didn't even personally pick out. Erin has a peculiar habit (at least in my eyes) of just dropping by a store (especially if there's a sale going on) on the way home from school and then buying clothes that she likes for me. It's a good thing she has a pretty good fashion sense. It's not that she does it very often but you're talking about a guy who'd buy a new set of clothes every 5 years (or more) if left to my own devices. I'd rather save my money for more important stuff, like computers, electronics, and gadgets. ;-) Yeah yeah just stamp a big "GEEK" sign to my forehead and get it over with. Anyway, it's just a strange feeling. And our walk-in closets getting mighty full.

Who ever came up with "bite me" as an insult? I mean it's a pretty silly one if you think about it since you're pretty much just asking for someone to physically harm you. And even if you don't take it in the literal sense, it's not really very insulting. Unlike say, "blow me" which makes more sense as an insult but isn't very indicative of the action that it actually represents. Wait, why the hell am I even talking about this?

Black Hawk Down. Painful movie. Not as gory as Saving Private Ryan but this was just depressing in so many ways. I think I liked it better when war movies were fun and uplifting. This trying to be real shit is very draining. Not that it's necessarily bad but ugh, enough already.

What the hell??? Snow Dogs was the second most watched movie last week????

Night View of Ground Zero

Over the Thanksgiving weekend my cousin came by from Taiwan by way of Texas where she's currently learning English in preparation for entering an MBA program so we took her around town. Saturday evening we went to the top of the Empire State Building. Beautiful night to be up there; clear visibility for miles around. Even with the WTC no longer there, it's still tough not to miss where it used to be. Sorry for the fuzzy picture but the wind up there that night was pretty rough.